Life's Golden Ticket by Brendon Burchard

“How’s the family?”
    â€œOh, they’re doing just great,” Gus replied, beaming with pride at his charges. “Getting smarter and stronger by the day. You know, I got Jo-Jo there to lift up the back end of a truck with his trunk the other day. Stronger and smarter by the day. . . .”
    Gus looked past us suddenly and grinned. “Well, I’ll be! Henry?”
    I looked over my left shoulder to see Henry approaching. A pang of guilt shot through me.
    â€œHeya, right back at ya, Gus,” he said, leaning on the fence beside me. He glanced at me and nodded, then looked past me to the wizard, who was standing at my other side.
    The wizard nodded, and an awkward few moments passed. Gus seemed to want to say something to Henry, but the wizard shook his head. I wanted to say something to him too: I’m sorry.
    â€œHenry,” the wizard finally said, “Gus here was just telling us about how smart and strong the elephants have gotten.”
    â€œIs that right?” Henry replied. He turned to me. “You know much about elephants?”
    â€œNot really,” I said.
    â€œOh. You might find them interesting. Gus, why don’t you tell us about elephants?”
    Gus grinned at the invitation. “Sure. I’d love to give you the rundown.” He motioned at the elephant closest to us. “Take Jo-Jo there—he’s a perfect example of a good, healthy adult elephant. Adult elephants go anywhere from ten to thirteen feet tall; Jo-Jo’s twelve feet. From trunk to tail, he’s longer than your car —about twenty-three feet. He weighs more than four cars, around twelve thousand pounds. He can lift eleven hundred pounds and could tear a small tree out of the ground with his trunk. In the wild, where his habitat would be a five-hundred-square-mile stretch of land, he could run about eighteen miles an hour. But he’s not just strong and fast—he’s smart too. Like all elephants, he has the largest brain size to body weight of any animal on the planet besides humans.”
    Gus clearly had a lot of pride in the animals and his job.
    Henry scratched his head. “Tell me somethin’, Gus. There’s always something I couldn’t understand about your elephants. You say in the wild they roam five hundred miles and can run almost twenty miles an hour?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œAnd you say they can lift eleven hundred pounds and can tear a small tree out of the ground?”
    â€œSure. In the wild, these guys often uproot whole trees for food.”
    â€œSo tell me something,” Henry continued. “How is it that those elephants there stay in one place? I see they’re all just tied to a stake in the ground with a tiny rope. Don’t they feel compelled to rip that stake out of the ground and roam free?”
    â€œNah,” Gus replied. “They gave that urge up a long time ago.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” the wizard asked.
    â€œWell, you see, those elephants don’t think they can be free. See, when they were babies, we tied ’em up for the first time. Now, when we did that, you better believe they tried to break free. They made allsorts of fuss and noise and tried like hell. But they were too small and weak. The rope was too strong. Over time they convinced themselves they couldn’t be free, and they stopped trying. They’ve always believed they were too small and weak to pull the stake out of the ground.”
    â€œNow I get it,” Henry said, a knowing smile on his face. He looked over to Jo-Jo, shoveling hay into his mouth with his trunk. “Well, Gus, I can see it’s about feeding time, so we’ll let you get back to work. Thanks for the information. We’ll see you soon.”
    Gus tipped his hat and went to feed the elephants.
    The wizard turned to me. “So there’s our lesson.”
    â€œWhat lesson?” I asked.
    The wizard looked at me as